BMW i Road to Coachella 2018

Building on the success of 2017’s multiple-award-winning Road to Coachella campaign, BMW i returned to the desert in 2018 with a fresh take on the groundbreaking idea. This year, the Road to Coachella focused on a creative partnership with John Gourley of the multi-platinum group Portugal. The Man, one of the most anticipated performers of the iconic festival. Gourley is an accomplished visual artist in addition to his role as the band’s co-founder and lead singer. He drew inspiration from Coachella and BMW i to create a custom one-of-a-kind design that was wrapped on the BMW i fleet for the Road to Coachella. Gourley’s creative process, including the big reveal of the wrapped i8 and i3, was all documented and released on BMW’s socials as well as its official website. The entire campaign was announced with two teaser videos via Coachella’s official social media channels.

In addition to John Gourley’s creative aspect, we also enlisted 15 social media influencers from around the world who each embarked on their own Road to Coachella. These creators documented their road trip as they made their way to the Coachella Valley, stopping at iconic destinations along the way. Each influencer’s journey was experienced through compelling social media posts to their millions of followers, all centered on the fleet of custom-wrapped BMW i8s and i3s. Influencers included Kellan Lutz, Nick Bateman, Dorothy Wang, Jack Baran, Jenn Im, and more. See them all at #RoadtoCoachella on Instagram.

Outside of the festival, the brand partnered with nightlife leaders the h.wood Group to present two of the largest events: Poppy’s BMW i Powered Paradise on Friday night, and Poppy’s BMW i Recharge Oasis on Sunday afternoon. On Friday night, Kylie Cosmetics celebrated the launch of the new makeup collection ‘KOURT X KYLIE’ & the launch of Pizza Boys Radio on Apple Music’s Beats 1. More than 6,000 guests were shuttled from a remote parking lot to the secret location of the parties, which took place at a sprawling estate just blocks away from Coachella. As guests disembarked from the shuttles, they were greeted by a fleet of Gourley-wrapped BMW i display vehicles that they could climb into for the perfect shareable photo as they entered the party.

The events featured performances by Diplo, Travis Scott, Lil Wayne, Pizza Boys, Post Malone, and more. The star-studded parties drew attendees like Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, The Weeknd, Demi Lovato, G-Eazy, Halsey, Paris Hilton, Kourtney Kardashian, and many more. The parties included several custom BMW i activations. An interactive neon photo booth experience with the brand new BMW i8 Roadster gave guests a chance to create their own instantly shareable video. A custom-wrapped claw machine housed custom bandanas designed by John Gourley, with four of those bandanas hiding a BMW i8 key. The four lucky guests who clawed their way to a key won an extended weekend test drive of the all-new BMW i8 Roadster. Another popular photo moment inside the event was a BMW i3 neon art installation, which featured a metal i3 frame traced with neon flex lighting. BMW i teamed up with experiential marketing firm Mirrored Media for a second year of the Road to Coachella campaign, which garnered over 1 billion impressions across social, digital, and press platforms this April.